NEA Jazz Program Touts D.C.'s Own Horn

Shirley Horn combined her jazz piano with vocals that caught the attention of Miles Davis, Oscar Peterson and Ahmad Jamal. In 1998 her tribute to Davis won the Grammy for best jazz vocal. (Larry Busacca)

The National Endowment for the Arts yesterday named Shirley Horn, the powerful Washington-bred vocalist, to the roster of this year's Jazz Masters.

The annual honor salutes composers, instrumentalists and vocalists, as well as advocates for discovering and preserving musical talent. "Jazz may well be considered America's most treasured and most influential export," said Dana Gioia, the NEA chairman, who made the announcement at a jazz event in Seattle.

Reaching way back in jazz history, the NEA also named Artie Shaw to the list. Now in his nineties and living in California, the clarinetist was a renowned bandleader of the 1930s and '40s swing era. Yesterday Shaw said, through the NEA: "I am, naturally, pleased by the present appraisal of my work. As I have often said, 'I did the best I could with the material at hand.' "

Others joining the list are guitarist Kenny Burrell, clarinetist and saxophonist Paquito D'Rivera, arranger and composer Slide Hampton, organist Jimmy Smith and impresario George Wein. The Jazz Masters program was established in 1982 but was expanded last year to produce tours and recordings by the honorees. People who have promoted jazz through writing and concerts were also added and Wein, a pianist, was cited for creating the Newport Jazz Festival, now 50 years old.

The awards are given at the annual convention of the International Association for Jazz Education, held in January in Long Beach, Calif.

Early in her career Horn, now 70, switched from classical piano to jazz and combined her playing with vocal interpretations that caught the attention of Miles Davis, Oscar Peterson and Ahmad Jamal. She recorded and appeared steadily at clubs and festivals but then took a decade off in the 1970s to raise her family. She came back stronger than ever, and several of her more than 20 albums have been nominated for Grammy awards. In 1998 her tribute to Davis, "I Remember Miles," won the Grammy for best jazz vocal performance.

In her characteristically understated manner, Horn told the NEA yesterday: "I am thrilled to be in such good company."